Staff photo / Andy Gray Lighting designer Ellen Licitra watches rehearsal Monday from the lighting and sound booth at The Playhouse Downtown, which is now equipped with new LED lighting and sound equipment as well as the computers to operate them.

YOUNGSTOWN — A new chapter for the Youngstown Playhouse and the Morley Arts Building begins Friday with the opening of The Playhouse Downtown.

The dramatic comedy “The Lyons” will be staged in the 140-seat performance space on the third floor of the building, where Ballet Western Reserve has its studios.

Many in the theater community have fond memories of the theater, which was home to the Oakland Center for the Arts from 1999 until 2014.

Youngstown Playhouse Technical Director Johnny Pecano worked on many productions as a volunteer when it was home to the Oakland Center.

“I don’t know how many hundreds of hours we all donated down here,” Pecano said. “It’s just nice to be back.”

Salem native Connor Bezeredi, who is directing “The Lyons,” said the first show he ever did in Youngstown was a teen version of the musical “Rent” when he was 15. Molly Galano, who is part of the six-member cast for “The Lyons,” appeared in several productions there.

“We all remember the feel of that place, and it has a special place in all of our hearts,” said John Cox, president of the Youngstown Playhouse board.

That’s one of the reasons Cox wanted to revitalize the space as a satellite to the Youngstown Playhouse. It fills a niche between the two theaters at the Playhouse’s building off Glenwood Avenue. The Moyer Room only seats 75 people, and some productions don’t lend themselves to the theater’s configuration, which has seating on three sides of the stage.

At the same time, there are works the Playhouse would like to do that can’t draw a crowd large enough to fill its 450-seat mainstage theater.

An anonymous donor gave $130,000 to the Playhouse to cover the full cost of the renovation.

What theatergoers attending “The Lyons” will see over the next two weekends is a work in progress as far as the venue itself. Details for the contract and the lease took longer than originally planned, Cox said, so rather than try to rush the full renovation, they made the necessary improvements in the theater in time for this production, and renovations on the lobby and other parts of the building will be completed before “The Shark Is Broken,” a play about the making of the movie “Jaws,” is scheduled to open June 19.

“We’re going to have artist renderings from Strollo Architects (on display),” Cox said. “They’re helping us with everything, and they have renderings of what the front room is gonna look like, the new carpeting, the new light fixtures, the back room, the dressing rooms that we’re gonna redo. We’re gonna have representation of what it’s going to look like. Hopefully, between when this show closes and when ‘The Shark Is Broken’ opens, it will be renovated fully.”

The improvements made so far might not be evident to those looking at the stage, but they will be noticed by those who look up or listen closely.

“Everything had been taken out for the theater from years ago,” Cox said. “The only thing there was just the seats. So we have a brand new sound system that’s all Sonos, so we can move it around and use it in the front or the back. If people leave the auditorium, the sound (carries) through the rest of the building so they can hear it.

“And then with the lighting, we had to get the electrician to come in, put a new panel in there, and then we have a whole new lighting system that we bought for the downtown space, new LEDs and things like that.”

Cox said they drew on the expertise of Pecano and Playhouse lighting designer Ellen Licitra, both of whom have worked with universities and other institutions building or renovating theaters.

“Ellen and I have put in many systems over the years, and we’re always like, ‘Oh, someday, maybe we’ll get to put in a system of our own,’ and it finally happened,” Pecano said. “We’re excited about that.”

The sound and lighting won’t be used solely for theatrical productions. Cox envisions The Playhouse Downtown as an entertainment hub for downtown Youngstown that will attract visitors for a range of events.

“It’s just something new and fresh for downtown and kind of a different vibe and a different feel from what the Glenwood facility is going to offer,” Cox said. “We’re going to try to plan not just shows on weekends, but things throughout the week. Once we get it more renovated, we want to do Broadway karaoke nights. There are Broadway raves that they’ve been doing (in other cities). We’ve been looking at different stuff to do, rentals to different bands … It gives us a lot of options to be able to do a variety of different things.”

Theatergoers will appreciate the downtown location, Cox said, which makes it easier to go out to dinner before an event or grab a drink after a show. A venue capable of hosting a variety of events could provide an additional revenue stream for a community theater now in its second century of operation. And more people downtown means those benefits won’t be limited to the theater.

“We’re gonna use that downtown space to generate business, generate income, generate traffic for downtown,” Cox said. “That’s exciting.”